


The Long Way Home

by TwinDragons0268



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Different Storyline, F/M, Forced Marriage, Kid Fic, Multi, Politics, Pregnancy, Sort Of, Southeastern Wolf Tribe, Southern Wolf Tribe, They are in a war so, War, Werewolf wars, Werewolves, Wolves, kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:49:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinDragons0268/pseuds/TwinDragons0268
Summary: When Aphmau risks everything to save Laurence, Katelyn, and Abby from the wrath of the Southeastern Wolf Tribe, she's forced to stay back to ensure their escape.Now, married to someone she doesn't love and alone in a world with Werewolves and hostility at every turn, how will she get back to the family and friends that she loves? And will she add and create new ones along the way?Eventual Laurence/Aphmau, but Garroth/Aphmau is a canon-compliant undercurrent as well.





	The Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, to a new fic! 
> 
> I have searched throughout a couple of different places, but I haven't been able to find a decent Laurence/Aphmau fanfic anywhere! Major loss, in my opinion. 
> 
> Even though I do ship Aarmau, which, OF COURSE I DO..
> 
> Larmau was my first ship. 
> 
> FIRST, first. Ever.
> 
> So I really want to do right by it, and, hopefully, you all! 
> 
> Enjoy, and leave a comment! (They absolutely make my day, and I appreciate any criticism and spelling errors I might have missed. Let me know!)
> 
> UNBETA'D, AND I DO NOT OWN MINECRAFT DIARIES OR THEIR CHARACTERS! That is for the lovely Aphmau, goodness knows what would happen if I did xD

The woman pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, cold seeping through her bones. She shuddered and brought the bundle in her arms closer to her chest, desperately praying to whatever gods that might be listening for the cold to abate. Not for her own purpose or journey, no. She had long given up any thoughts of positive change, any wishes of  _hope_. She didn’t believe in fate, or destiny, or luck. At one point she might’ve, but that was before life proved just how horrible it could be, and how much it could take away in such a short amount of time. 

But this small little blossom of light somehow bloomed in the most desolate of wastelands, and damn it all if she wasn’t going to do everything within her power to let it grow. 

The woman tightened her grip on the smooth, well-made fabric of her cloak, obvious to anyone who bothered to look that it was expensive. With its midnight hue and gold trim, fur-lined and sleek, it was fabric fit for royalty. 

For a princess, or a prince.

Her tail, still such a new and unwelcome commodity, twitched underneath her many layers and the woman shook herself of the unpleasant feeling. 

They were still new, these features, and she was yet unused to the many sensations they wrought. Uncomfortable indeed, though the ears were slightly useful in certain situations. They had certainly given her enhanced hearing, which was both a blessing and a curse. Being able to hear what was going on several doors down during the small hours of the morning was not something she wanted to hear while she was trying to sleep again. Or ever. 

The tail had nearly  _no_  redeeming qualities, other than knowing when a conversation was getting particularly tense, or something extremely bad was about to happen. It was almost like a sixth sense, but between the fact that it only happened around fifty percent of the time and puffed out obscenely whenever it did, the skill didn’t count for much. 

 

  

But, like so much else at the moment, there was nothing to be done about it. 

 

 

The woman shook herself stiffly, ears flattening. She could not risk staying in the cold for very much longer, but in this weather, it was almost impossible to see anything, much less a possible shelter or respite from the cold.   

 

She narrowed her eyes at the blank horizon, at the swirling snow painting the entire worldly canvas white. This terrain was foreign, her only glimpses had been from within the walls of a castle. 

 

But she had to get through. She had to persevere. 

 

For if she didn’t, if she died out here, then everything that he gave up, that she herself gave up, all the promises she had made, would be for naught. 

 

 

The woman didn’t believe in destiny and had long given up wishing for what was lost. But she had been given a chance, however small, and she was taking it. 

      

 

 

~~~

 

“Do not speak out of line, small one. Unless you wish for your friends in the dungeon to take your punishment?” His voice cut through the tension like a knife, cold and sharp as steel.

 

     Aphmau was shaking with rage, yet held her tongue.

She could feel the fur on her tail rising, and her ears had long since flattened against her head, betraying what little cool she had composed upon her features. 

 

Not for the last time, she cursed Michi and every damn cookie and cake that she baked.

 

Her opportunities had been cut slim and were growing even slimmer by the moment. He had leverage over her, a sure way to guarantee that she wouldn't do anything against his will. 

She had an unruly power of a goddess at best, and a one-way ticket to blacking out at worst. 

 

_Think, Aphmau. What would Garroth do?_

He would go after his comrades, first. Save them and worry about himself later. 

Which may have been what got him stuck in the Irene dimension in the first place, but- her own situation was vastly different. Really.

As it was, Laurance and Katelyn had no weapons or means of defense other than hand-to-hand against several fully shifted  _werewolves_ , and she had made a promise to get Abby out as well. She was the only one within her group that had even the slightest chance of escape, given her larger margin of freedom (see, not being stuck in a dungeon), so getting them out first and worrying about herself after would be the smartest and most logical course of action. 

 

And, no matter how much she tried to push it down, there was still that guilt, that self-loathing that constantly lurked under her skin, no matter how much she tried to push it back. She had gotten them sent  _fifteen years_  into the future, just because of her own lack of awareness and inability to be there for her own damn village, her own guards. One of her closest friends. 

 

She had failed them once, and she wasn’t going to do it again.

 

Aphmau looked away, casting her eyes down and away to seem submissive, yet still angry. At least her Meif’wa features seemed to be of some use, twitching and lashing as they were. 

 

The king smiled, a cruel slant of a thing, the smile of someone who knows he has the upper hand. The smile of a shark about to consume its prey.

 

Meanwhile, Aphmau cast out her magic, searching for something, anything to get them out in time. 

She felt pinpricks of light as her phantom essence swept through every level and floor, the lives and souls of the many werewolves (and some not) of the castle. And-  _there_. In the dungeons, where her friends’ lights bobbed-  _alive, thank Irene they’re alive_ \- there was a secret exit. A way out. 

Receding her being only slightly, she found the light that she was looking for. 

 

The dungeon guard, with the dungeon keys. 

 

Aphmau hesitated, not knowing if what she was about to do would work. It was possibly the largest breach of privacy she had ever crossed, and she could already feel her magic straining, stretching thin. She had to work fast. 

 

Taking a deep inhale that, to the king probably looked like she was fighting off tears, Aphmau centered herself on that small burst of light and dove. 

 

 

 

 

 

_Smells. Smells of the stone, smells of the wood, smells of the moss clinging to the insides of the damp cell walls, and of the mold slowly creeping up alongside it. So much is taken in, a whole new face and body and mind-_

_Prisoners. There are prisoners. This wolf is supposed to guard the prisoners._

_...Let them out. Set them free._

_Let them out? Why would this wolf let them out? The King has made the wolf stay here to guard them, even though the cells are already so strong and guarded by stone and rock and-_

_...Turn the key, and let out all three prisoners inside these cells._

_The King will be mad, the King will be furious-_

_Please?_

_..._

_Okay._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laurance sat on the lone ledge in his cell, staring at his boots as if they held the answers to all his problems. Or, at least they're better than the cell bars and food bowls. He’s already checked those too, and they hold absolutely none. Thus, his boots.

 

_She is safe, she is with another man, she is safe and beautiful, always beautiful, but she’s- proposed? To be married? No, no, no it wasn’t supposed to go this way- it would be with someone she loved, if not him, but someone she_ chose _-_

_The brutal face of the Werewolf King as he bade the groom to kiss the bride, her face and a lone tear sliding down her cheek, he wants to kiss it away but he’s here, stuck inside of a cell while she_ suffers-  

 

A full-body flinch overtook him at the unmistakable sound of a key opening the cell door, and Laurance jerked himself out of his stupor. 

 

He hated himself when his mind wandered down that dark path, but like clockwork, the memories came. Taunted him. Left him focusing on things like his own  _boots_  to keep sane, whenever the stress came crashing down. 

 

But who would be-?

 

The guard walked in, looking vaguely dazed but nonetheless held the key to the cells. His cell. 

 

With another click and a drawn-out groan, the door in front of him yawns wide. 

 

Laurance tensed, waiting for the inevitable grabbing of arms, restraint in chains until they can “escort” him to whatever gods-damned place the King fancies, 

but it never came. The guard stood there, eyes vacant, stepping aside as if to say, “ _Look, I gave you an out. Take it!_ ”

 

He cautiously sidestepped the guard, but a mammoth paw clasped him on his shoulder, halting his progress. 

 

_What in the-_

_“Laurance."_

“Aphmau?!” he cried, voice loud in the otherwise empty cell. The guard looked on, paw still on his shoulder. 

 

“What are you doing here, how are you even-“

 

_"No time to talk, Laurance. I’m using my magic and I’ve found you a way out, it’s in Cell 4. Take this key from the guard and unlock Katelyn and Abby, the other prisoner, in Cells 1 and 3. I got a message out to Nicole yesterday, so she should be-"_

 

“Wait, Nicole? Aphmau what-"

 

_"-on her way, if not already here. Stick together, head to the West side of the forest. Take a few swords from the armory, if you can, they burned our stuff, so-"_

 

“Please, wait a minute-” he said, but she kept talking as if he hadn’t said a word.

 

_"-you have to get food and water from Nicole. No time. I-"_  

 

“Aphmau! Listen to me!” he shouted, voice echoing. 

 

" _I’m not coming. I can’t,_ ”she said as if already knowing what he was going to ask.

The words were quiet and hardly spoken, but his throat tightened and he felt a bit of his heart break. 

 

“No. I’m not-  _no._ You are coming with us, I am not leaving you here,” he said. 

 

_"Laurance, I’m the only thing able to get you out. I can find a way to escape once you all are safe, but my magic is at its limit already, and I can’t-"_

 

“We are not leaving you. Period. I will storm into that damn throne room myself and get you out of there, but we are not. Leaving,” he said, words firm and determined. Damn this self-sacrificing  _bullshit-_

"No, you don’t understand, I can’t just-“her voice was pleading, but he was too angry to care.

“No,  _you_  don’t understand,” he said, voice barely above an angry hiss. “I have gone through actual  _hell_ to save the woman I love, nearly lost myself in the process, and have protected her through Irene knows what. So do not tell me that I don’t understand when you know perfectly well just how much it  _hurts_ to leave someone behind. Someone important.”

 

Silence meets his words.

 

“So I am not letting you stay here and go through any more of this shackled prison alone. Aphmau, I-“ he chokes off, previous anger simmered down to mere embers, leaving only pure helplessness behind. Because he  _knows_ what that silence means. She’s already made up her mind, and- 

She’s the only one that has the power to get them out. 

 

_I can’t lose her again._

 

Laurance yanked his shoulder away from the guard, but the werewolf's grip is unwavering, and his struggles are met with nothing but a blank gaze.  

 

“Aphmau, no,  _please-_ “ he said, aware and not caring that he was begging. 

 

_"I am going to get out of here, Laurance. I will._ _And I’m going to come home: to my sons, and to Zoe, to our town, to our future, and to- to you. We promised that we would find Garroth, didn’t we? We can’t let him down. I-"_  

 

He heard sobbing; strange, disembodied sobbing coming from his own head. It cleaved an even deeper cut into his heart, and he felt wetness slide down his own cheeks.

 

_"I-I have a pending engagement with a table, remember? J-just, keep them safe for me until I get back. Okay?_ _”_

_Take care of my people._

“Y-yes, my Lord,” he said, barely above a whisper.

 

_I will._

With a final shuddering sob, the connection cut. 

 

 

 

\+  +  +

 

 

 

Aphmau fell to her knees, and tears streamed freely down her face. The King smiled down at her with that shark’s grin, under the impression that his words had succeeded in cutting her down. Taming her.

 

Hardly.

 

She had tuned him out while he had droned on about her  _future_ and the duty she had to his  _kingdom_ , but her mind, her will, was elsewhere.

She had been using her magic, her Irene-given powers, and gotten her friends out.

Free. 

No one had noticed when the singular guard had gone missing from his post, nor when he returned mere minutes later, as though nothing had happened. 

 

No one noticed the slight shudder that went through the rocks, the stone, moments later, almost as if a giant door was opening and closing. 

 

And no one, not one human or werewolf in this whole cursed castle, took notice of the smile that crept on Aphmau's tear-ridden, downturned face as she knelt before the tyrant who called himself King. It was not a smile full of sadness, or a smile to hide the hurt inside.

 

No, this was a smile of  _victory_.

 

 

 

 


End file.
